Opinion: Destiny 2 can Learn from Tom Clancy’s The Division

At their core, both Destiny 2 and Tom Clancy’s The Division are hardcore shooters underneath the RPG and MMO elements. Both games are always online titles where players can group up in order to face down AI-controller enemies in cooperative play. Toss in the RPG bit where players are leveling up their characters and grinding for loot and you have the MMO-hybrids fans have come to know and play.

The only downside here? One game is getting a modest amount of content, open discussion from the developers while the other is being mismanaged and unfortunately, slowly dying due to the lack of open communication. For fans of Destiny 2, the pill may be rather hard to swallow when it comes to seeing just how poorly Bungie has been handling the game they love, but if fans of Destiny are looking for a better alternative, there’s already one on the market and has been for several years: Tom Clancy’s The Division.

But let me make something rather clear: Comparing these two titles is tough. One has only been around for a little over six months while the other has been available for just over two years. But you may be wondering, how can of these benefit from the lessons of the other, and if so, what benefit will Destiny 2 have from learning from Tom Clancy’s The Division? That’s exactly what we’re here to discuss and in order to do so, we’re going to break this down into multiple sections for the sake of discussion.

[Credits: Dicelz of Reddit]

Don’t fear Randomized Perks on Gear and Weapons

One of the biggest things that both Tom Clancy’s The Division and the first Destiny benefited from was randomized loot tables and perks for the items that are dropped from enemies. One of the biggest changes Destiny 2 saw was the removal of randomized perks on gear and armor. One of the biggest points that fans of games such as Diablo III and The Division enjoy are the randomize perks that their weapons may contain, which forces players to consistently work at earning “god roll” weapons and armor.

This approach to gear itemization was essential to players wishing to see perks that would better suit their playstyles. That was one of the charms of Destiny and remains as a beneficial element of Tom Clancy’s The Division. Whether it’s set items, weapons, or various other drops, The Division is a solid loot-grind game and one that keeps many coming back for more than two years since its release.

The Story. Yes, The Division has a More Captivating Story Than Destiny 2.

Let’s face it. We all loved Destiny. It had a solid story by the team we reached the Rise of Iron expansion. Its universe became unfathomably large the more and more we got into it. We even came to love the tower, we began to question the historical events leading up to Destiny. Hell, we even felt our hearts break when the Awoken Queen and her ship were (as far as we know) destroyed. Then lets head into the Siva Crisis in The Rise of Iron.

Through that lengthy bit of content, we began to see just how far humanity had come during its Golden Age, a time before the fall of mankind, a time before the traveler and its guardians had appeared. However, fast-forward to Destiny 2 and it seemed like the aspirations the team had once had for the series would fade away into nothingness.

Luckily for fans of Bungie’s newly established franchise, that’s where The Division has continually improved over the past couple of years. With the addition of DLC content, The Division has continually grown into a beautiful story to be told. It hasn’t held back by any means and the story remains immersive no matter how many times you play through it. It always seems to have something new to offer. Toss in the fact Ubisoft is already hard at work with Year 3 content and we have a lot in store for us as the year gets underway.

But it still brings us to our point: Destiny 2 needed to offer a story that matters. It needed to offer us a story we weren’t expecting by any means. Fortunately for Bungie, they can fix the story, but unfortunately for them, time isn’t on their side.

End-Game Content That Matters

When you think about beating a game such as these, as far as the main story is concerned, you have to begin to wonder what’s next. For fans of Destiny 2 the answer is simple and clean: shoot your way through multiple strikes in order to unlock the raid. Once the raid is unlocked, proceed with clearing the raid only to obtain gear that has little to no meaning outside of the raids instance. If raiding isn’t for you, then off to the Crucible it is in order to grind out your gear while showing other players why you are the best of the best.

In Tom Clancy’s The Division, the answer isn’t necessarily as easy to answer. There’s a lot of routes that players can take. If you want to gear up, doing side-missions and post-game content is your best bet. After all, Tom Clancy’s The Division does have their take on “dungeons” for players to complete, Incursions (Ubisoft’s take on raids) and even a healthy amount of PvP for fans to enjoy. Let alone do you have all of that content to absorb, there’s even a nifty world-tier system where players can increase the difficulty of the A.I. within their game, which allows for better loot for players to acquire.

Return to Unlimited-Use Shaders

Let’s face it. We can all agree that Destiny 2 has one of the worst microtransaction systems on the market. It’s greedy, it’s abusive, and it even ruined Destiny 2’s winter event “The Dawning,” which left fans reeling with pure frustration. Toss in the fact fans are already a little salty over the lackluster first DLC and the microtransaction locked “The Dawning” event, fans aren’t exactly all that optimistic about the future of the game.

Swap games and move over to Tom Clancy’s The Division and things are a bit fairer and much less abusive. Content can be purchased or it can be earned depending on the amount of time you wish to put into the game. Unlike Destiny 2, all cosmetics are just that, cosmetic. They can’t be leveled up, infused, nor can they be used to alter the game in any way. Sprinkle in the fact that all cosmetics are infinite use, there’s no form of one-time use application for any of it, you can alter your clothes as much as you wish and even revisit previous appearances if you wish.

The same goes for guns. Camo isn’t single use. All camo is multi-use and can also be used on both pistols and primary or secondary weapons if you wish, which is something Bungie should reconsider since fans have been demanding a return to how Destiny treated its shader system.

Can Destiny 2 Really Benefit From These Subtle Changes?

Just as I stated before, while both games, at their core, are shooters, they’re both very different in many ways, but both are attempting to do the same thing. Both are MMO shooters, both are focused on loot grinding, and both are also focused on their cooperative play elements. However, one is horribly failing and is already beginning to fall into irrelevance while the other is beginning to make a steady comeback. One requires the excessive use external tools, forums, and social media groups to enjoy while the other doesn’t need it.

Unfortunately for Bungie, their competitor, Ubisoft, isn’t worried about the state of their game. After a rocky launch and a bit of time to get The Division on its feet, Ubisoft has hard their work cut out for them over the past couple of years, but now, they are comfortable with where it is, they’re comfortable with how their game is performing moderately well. While Destiny 2 is already quickly approaching its first birthday, we have little idea of when any of the games planned updates are happening or what direction Bungie is planning to go with the game outside of a rumored major expansion later this year. Let’s just hope things look up and that maybe, just maybe, Bungie takes a look at why Ubisoft’s MMO-hybrid is still up and running and why fans of the game keep coming back for more.

About the Writer:

Dustin is our native console game reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the borders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPGs, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter or Facebook.